Four Columbians Travel This Summer with Projects for Peace and Henry Evans Traveling Fellowships!

Congratulations to Sarah Bryden (CC’26), Jacob Sanning (CC'27) and Huma Nayab (CC'25) on being named 2026 Projects for Peace summer fellows, and to Anna Lind (CC'26) and Elijah Rameker (CC'26) on being named Henry Evans Traveling fellows!

Each summer, Columbia students and alumni travel around the world, pursuing studies, research, and community engagement projects. This summer, meet four of our fellows, traveling to different corners of the globe!

Projects for Peace is a global program that encourages young adults to develop innovative, community-centered, and scalable responses to the world’s most pressing issues. Along the way, these student leaders increase their knowledge, improve skills, and establish identities as peacebuilders and changemakers. Projects for Peace headquarters is hosted by Middlebury College’s Center for Community Engagement.

Sarah Bryden (CC’26) and Jacob Sanning (CC'27) have been awarded a 2026 Projects for Peace grant. Their project takes them to Khovd, Mongolia, where they will be building a corpus of the endangered Oirat language, helping preserve it for future generations and assist future research efforts by linguists in the field.

Sarah Bryden CC'26 is majoring in History and Linguistics, with a particular interest in the use of Quechua and Yucatec Maya during Spanish colonial rule. For the past year, Sarah has studied the Kalmyk-Oirad language in Columbia’s “Language Documentation and Field Methods” class, first as a student, and then as a TA. Passionate about language documentation, Sarah has conducted research as a Laidlaw Scholar and through the Humanities Research Scholars Program. In 2024, she spent a summer in Yucatán helping to build a Yucatec Maya linguistic corpus called “T’aantsil,” translating hours of interviews and making the site navigable in English. As a research assistant for projects at Lancaster University/Tec de Monterrey and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, she has also supported linguistic research on Yucatec Maya. On campus, Sarah has worked as a Teaching Assistant in several linguistics courses, and as a Peer Academic Skills Consultant for the CSA, and has been a student representative to the Committees on Instruction and the Global Core. She additionally serves as treasurer of the city’s Quechua club, the Runasimi Outreach Collective. This year, Sarah helps promote research and the Core as a Rose Research Ambassador, hosting events on campus and contributing to the blog.

Jacob Sanning CC'27 studies Linguistics in the College. Growing up in rural Kentucky, Jacob was not exposed to the variety of the world's languages. After arriving at Columbia, he became deeply involved deeply involved in the Chinese and Tibetan language programs, earning a fellowship to pursue language study in Beijing, China. Jacob has served as a Teaching Assistant for Introduction to Linguistics and Semantics classes, and his previous linguistic research on the Oirat language was accepted by the Conference on the Semantics of Languages of Africa, Asia, Australia and Oceania, where he and his research partners plan to present in May of this year. In undertaking the Projects for Peace grant, Jacob hopes to develop his expertise in linguistic field work, assist in the preservation of the critically endangered Oirat language, and obtain data for the preparation of his undergraduate thesis.

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Congratulations as well to Huma Nayab CC'25, who was also awarded a 2026 Projects for Peace Grant! A MESAAS major, Huma will be leading a digital safety and peacebuilding initiative for young women in Pakistan. Her work seeks to address the growing issue of technology-facilitated gender-based violence by providing virtual workshops, peer-support networks, and practical digital safety training for approximately 200–250 women across Pakistan.

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The Henry Evans Traveling Fellowship funds graduating seniors in their pursuit of independent, project-based travel in the year after graduation. The fellowship supports creative, self-directed experiences outside New York City that allow recipients to engage meaningfully with new places and cultures, beyond what they simply might as tourists, while building on intellectual connections fostered throughout their undergraduate studies.

Anna Lind CC'26 is majoring in English Literature and minoring in Classics. She is an editor for the philosophy magazine Gadfly and a writer for the campus news publication Bwog. While at Columbia, Anna received a scholarship to attend the international Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference and presented research at the annual conference held by the Media, War, and Conflict research group (MEKK) in Oslo on spyware and its impact on journalism. In the fall, she will begin the Master's program in Comparative Literature at Columbia, where she will study Latin texts and translations, with an emphasis on perceptions of justice. As a Henry Evans Traveling Fellow, Anna will spend two months living in Norway this summer, studying press freedom, source protection, and the political atmosphere of one of the most robust democracies in the world.

Elijah Rameker CC'26 studies studying Anthropology and Public Health, with a particular interest in the aftermath of crisis and its subjectivities. As a research assistant at NYU Langone Health, Bellevue Hospital, and the Mailman School of Public Health, Elijah has developed experience in promoting health equity and community-engaged scholarship. In New York City, he has worked at the International Rescue Committee, American Red Cross, and Asian American Federation, among other organizations, striving to advance the rights and well-being of local communities. On campus, Elijah is part of Marticulate’s Advising Fellow Leadership Team and Co-President of Raw Elementz Hip Hop Troupe, where he previously served as Artistic Director. As a Henry Evans Traveling Fellow, Elijah looks forward to conducting comparative research on interfaith hospital chaplaincy and urban death culture between New York City and Amsterdam.

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To follow the progress of Sarah and Jacob's project, visit the Projects for Peace’s ‘Annual Viewbook’, where summer projects are archived and program milestones are celebrated. For more information about Projects for Peace and the Henry Evans Traveling Fellowship​, please reach out to Undergraduate Research and Fellowships.